


Händedruck

by hanktalkin



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-15 15:35:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13034184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanktalkin/pseuds/hanktalkin
Summary: Cassandra chooses not to lose her way.





	Händedruck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedwarveninquisitor](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=thedwarveninquisitor).



> This is my secret santa for thedwarveninquisitor on tumblr! They wanted something feat. Cassandra, and also like enemies to friends, the origins companions, and their inquisitor to be included. Hope you enjoy!

A new Divine. A new Left Hand.

Cassandra had done her research, preparing for this meeting in an attempt to keep her mind on the Divine’s goals and off her own thoughts. A thousand and one anxieties, foolish worries and…under it all…a sadness she couldn’t deny. Staring out a window of the Grand Cathedral, she watched a few scant snowflakes fall past the glass, the only evidence of winter this far into Orlais. Cassandra had never minded it for that, the warmth of the sea reminding her of Nevarra more than her trips farther south. This place had been her home for over a decade and now…

Beatrix was gone. Her successor was three days coronated, and Cassandra was left feeling floating, without purpose.

A hand went to the braid piled on top of her head, and—feeling it breaking free from its plait—she undid it completely. As her fingers moved though the tangles of black hair, she tried to find her center again.

She shouldn’t feel so helpless. A death she knew had been coming had come, and it was not like Beatrix had been much of a guiding force in the last years of her life. Cassandra was a Seeker, Pentaghast. This should not shake her.

And yet…she’d served the Divine the entirety of her adult life. Maybe she was only human to feel…abandoned.

“Cassandra,” a voice at the doorway called. Cassandra turned, her hair not yet back in her braid since she’d forgotten halfway through.

“Your Grace,” Cassandra said with a nod as Dorothea entered. No, not Dorothea. Justinia. _Divine_.

“As you know, I’ve made my choice for my Left Hand,” Justinia said, already stepping aside to allow another woman passage. “Sister Leliana has graciously accepted.”

And _Sister_ Leliana she was. The red-haired woman was dressed in Chantry robes, but it did nothing to fool Cassandra, who’d found more about her past than anyone within the walls of the Grand Cathedral. This woman was a bard, a veteran of the fifth blight, had spent the past three years hunting a influential Orlesian noblewoman—no robe, no matter how authentic, could conceal how dangerous Leliana was.

“Beatrix never had need of a Left Hand,” Cassandra told her simply, the art of Chantry pleasantries never Cassandra’s strong suit. “I would like to know that you did not accept without reason.”

Leliana didn’t hesitate, her blue eyes twinkling. “The will of the Maker has called me back to Orlais. I assure you, Cassandra, that I will serve both him and the Divine without question.”

Cassandra straightened her shoulders, her hair swinging forward. Already layers of meaning beyond what she intended—omens that nothing with Leliana would ever be easy. Both her and her mistress were unknowns, not yet having proven themselves. But there was time; for Justinia to be Divine and for Leliana to be her Hand.

With a short bow, Cassandra crossed an arm across her chest. A salute in the Templar style. Respectful yet formal, and Justinia watched her Right Hand with unreadable eyes.

Cassandra hoped these two would be good for the faithful. Leaders who did what was best for those with the maker in their hearts. And if not, Cassandra would deal with it. For now, she would see.

* * *

The hunt for the Warden had been fruitless, and searching for the Champion looked to be similarly pointless with each passing day. A fine mist was beginning to settle in the streets of Kirkwall, threatening to be rain and never actually committing.

Cassandra remembered once, long ago, when Knight-Commander Martel had claimed that _the events in Kirkwall_ could never be allowed to happen again. How different a meaning those words had had back then, how reliably history repeats. Now she was dealing in the aftermath of another crazed and power-hungry Knight-Commander, the remains of Meredith’s last stand still bronze and glowing at the Gallows. Citizens were afraid to leave their homes, Templars were without a leader, and yet again the champions of the Maker spilled innocent blood.

Before, when Cassandra had saved Beatrix’s life, she’d been little more than a child in over her head, scrabbling to put together a conspiracy with forces she couldn’t put a name to. She thought if she was in control, if she stood among those who were too blind to see what was in front of them, she could change the course of fate. She could help.

Now it felt as though she was as useless at the Right as at the bottom.

“Did you really have to stab him, Cassandra?”

Cassandra wiped at her brow, pushing aside the hair that had turned sticky in the city’s mist. Once it was out of her face, she glared at Leliana. “I thought he knew where Hawke was. If he had been forthcoming, I would not have had to.”

Leliana raised a brow. “Didn’t you just tell me you believe him now?”

“…Like you are above such tactics when you want to gain information.”

“I don’t think that was tactics, Cassandra. I just think you wanted to stab him.”

Ignoring her, Cassandra stared into the damp city, blinking past the wet hair that had fallen back into place. Leliana was right, but Cassandra was in no mood to admit that; Over the years she’d worked closely with the Divine’s other hand, and had learned to barely tolerate Leliana’s…less than appealing way of doing her job. There was a good woman in there—she never would have become Justinia’s confidant if there wasn’t—but she took _the ends justify the means_ to an extreme Cassandra could never follow.

Meredith had felt justified. Martel had felt justified. When had there been a man or woman who hadn’t felt justified when they killed those who trusted them?

Sometimes Cassandra worried how easily she could fall down that same path, how if she lost her way, she had no one but herself to lead her back out.

“Cassandra?” Leliana asked worriedly.

Cassandra closed her eyes, seeing the bodies of dead mages as though they were still there. It took a second, to re-find the center that was still there. But then she opened them and said, “to the Keep again. We may yet find something.”

* * *

Another Divine gone.

Leliana paced, Solas watched the prisoner, and Cassandra tried to keep the fragile remains of the Chantry bureaucracy from killing themselves. It was about as hard as expected, especially with the breach expanding every day—Cassandra only found Leliana because she stepped into the Chantry prison while searching for a peaceful moment.

It was unsettling really. Cassandra wasn’t used to seeing Leliana broken like this, and finding the woman staring at a wall while the world continued to end put a shock through her system that didn’t lessen when Leliana turned to face her. The Left Hand’s eyes were dark—empty of something Cassandra had always associated with her. Hope, faith, a belief in second chances.

Cassandra remembered a window in the Grand Cathedral with snow swirling just beyond. She remembered being lost, no longer with someone to guide her. Leliana was feeling that and more, when Dorothea had been the one who had loved when no one else had, and had shown her the Maker’s light.

Cassandra couldn’t undo wrongs that had already passed. She couldn’t bring back Justinia, nor Beatrix. What she could do is place her hand atop Leliana’s, and let the woman be weak, just for a moment.

* * *

A river—Cassandra didn’t know the name—cut through the Hinterlands sloppily, showing no mercy to the bridge that had once tried to tame it. Not far away was a Templar encampment, now empty save for the Inquisition and a few bodies.

Sera was already pulling arrows from bodies, each time saying _and another little stabby for you, prick_ accompanied by a snorting giggle. Bull, sitting on an emptied-out chest, was doing his own post-battle rituals by cleaning the blood from his axe. They all felt oh so very far away as Cassandra stared down at one of the bodies.

“Cassandra? You alright?”

Blinking, Cassandra chased the ghosts away, turning to face Brynn. “…Yes, fine. I am glad there is on less stronghold in this region, that is all.”

The Herald scrunched her nose, then looked down at the Templar Cassandra had been staring at. “…Someone you know?”

Cassandra sighed, frustrated she’d been seen through so easily. “Yes. She was. And I suspect she will not be the last.”

Great. Now things were awkward. Cassandra seemed to make a habit of doing that.

But, after a while, Brynn spoke again, thinking awkward talk was better than awkward silence. “So…you’re a Templar, right?”

“No, not exactly.” Cassandra hadn’t spoken to the Herald much since the founding of the Inquisition—not enough to explain what the difference between a Templar and a Seeker was. “But I investigated them. Met with many of them.”

Cassandra leaned over the body. Not someone she knew by name, but by face. One of the hundreds of warriors that had left when the Order had abandoned the Chantry, she had now become one of the ever-growing number of bodies created by this war. In her hand was a blade, a good one, better than Cassandra’s own.

Carefully, Cassandra withdrew it, holding it in the sun until it caught the river’s reflections. “…We could yet still go to the Templars,” Cassandra said unexpectedly. She had never tried to persuade the Herald one way or another, but her mouth suddenly seemed to have a mind of its own. “We need any help we can with the Breach.”

Brynn shrugged. “Leliana said the mages would be more helpful. And _they’ve_ actually asked to treat with us.”

Of course Leliana had. These were _the ends_ she was always aiming for.

But Cassandra didn’t say that aloud; instead, she nodded, and told Brynn, “yes I know. But it is something to consider.”

Cassandra kept the sword.

* * *

An old Left Hand, but a new Divine.

Leliana was standing in the archway leading to the undercroft, carefully sipping a glass of red wine while her eyes danced over the celebrating Inquisition. Cassandra hasn’t seen her this chuffed since Halamshiral—each time a pair of heads put themselves together, Leliana smiled like she knew exactly what they were saying.

“Enjoying The Game, even within our own castle?” Cassandra asked, coming to stand beside her in the shadows.

Leliana smirked, ever so slightly. “No. I am just…watching.” As she said it, Brynn and the Iron Bull slipped away, giggling as they took the steps to the Inquisitor’s room. At the same time, Cole stole a sip from a soldier’s drink without him even noticing.

“You seem happy,” Cassandra said, noticing the touch of color in her cheeks. Perhaps due to the wine.

“Aren’t you?” Leliana motioned her glass around her. “Corypheus is dead, our losses were minimal…and the world is changing.”

Cassandra nodded. “You’re coronation is not that far off.”

Leliana smiled slightly into her wine glass. “Not exactly what I meant, but yes, that.”

There was something that rubbed Cassandra wrong about Leliana’s words—because the world was always changing. To Cassandra, sometimes it seemed as though it changed too fast, upending the old ways before anyone could figure out how to fix them. Cassandra felt like she’d been born in the worst time possible but…she supposed everyone in history had felt as much.

“At one point,” Cassandra began, “I never would have believed either of us could be Divine.”

“You and I both, Cassandra.” Leliana wasn’t bitter though, her eyes soft as she looked at friend. “When Justinia died I…I never did thank you.”

The night beneath the Chantry. Cassandra remembered. Nodding, she reminded Leliana, “I’ve made a history of losing people I look up to. It is not a pleasant experience.”

A wave of pain crossed Leliana’s face, but it was lessened by a year’s distance. She looked about to say something, but Cassandra wasn’t done.

“That, and you are my friend.”

Leliana’s eyebrows shot up, and the flush in her cheeks deepened.

Cassandra pushed on. “Years ago, I would never have imagined I could ever have called you as such. But the world has changed. So have you. I may never agree with your methods but I know what you have planned, Leliana. I am willing to see it through.”

“…Are you willing to return as Right Hand?”

The party chattered on, but it felt like every head in the room turned toward Cassandra as she accepted Leliana’s offer. “Once, I believed that if I was in control I could solve everything that came in front of me. But I was young, and naive, and I know that all of Thedas cannot be saved by one woman alone. I will gladly continue to serve the Divine, especially if I know she is you.”

There is no cure for pride. Cassandra would never be safe from losing her way, but she could always choose who to follow. And, as the Inquisition celebrated its glorious victory, she made another decision she could live with.


End file.
